| dc.description.abstract | The motivation for this study arose from the fact that, whereas 73% of Kenya is arid and semiarid
lands, suitable only for livestock rearing where the livestock sector contributes 12% to the
national GDP and whereas, according to Kenya Veterinary Vaccines Production Institute, about
10 million Kenyans derive their livelihood from livestock, no academic study was done in the
past to help understand the performance of the firms in the livestock sector. The study has
responded to the question: Are the MSEs in the livestock sector thriving or merely surviving? The
main objective of this study was to examine the effects of entrepreneurial behavior, social and
economic institutions on the performance of micro and small enterprises in the livestock sector in
North Eastern Kenya. The study was based on the interviews of the owners of 191 MSEs out of a
population of 305 firms, resulting in a response rate of 63 percent. The study was set within the
context of rural environment with highly constrained access to financial, human resources and
social capital and comparatively with weak socio-economic institutional framework. The study is
based on several empirical studies, literature review, conceptual framework and is presented in
eight chapters. The theoretical anchorages of the study are bricolage, effectuation, resource based
view (RBV) and institutional theories. As the literature review chapter three demonstrate, these
theories are most popular research lenses and were appropriate for this study. Bricolage and
effectuation theories of entrepreneurship, unlike causation, help to provide acceptable explanation
for how entrepreneurs successfully overcome the challenges of resources constraints in a highly
capital scarce settings. The role of institutions and resources in firm performance also help to
provide a well-grounded explanation as to why some firms perform better than others or some
enterprises fail altogether. Methodologically, the research design of the study was a crosssectional
survey method combined with case studies. The method of data collection was pretested,
assisted, self-completion questionnaire method, using Likert scale and qualitative
perception measures of performance to determine the dependent variable which was the
performance of the MSEs. Descriptive statistics, factor analysis, multiple regressions and
ANOVA were used to perform data analyses. The main findings of this study were that a number
of aspects of entrepreneurial behaviour dimensions directly, positively affected performance of
the MSEs. Some have negative effects and yet others have weak relationship with firm
performance. The specific findings from the study are: one; business interests, achievement need
or motivation contributed significantly to performance of MSEs. Two; business growth
motivation is explained by previous growth, asset size, motivation, attitudes, opportunity
recognition and institutional business climate. However, the study finds that overall
entrepreneurial behaviour has moderate positive effects on performance. Similarly, social and
economic institutions have on the average strong positive effects on the relationship between
entrepreneurial behaviour and performance of the MSEs. Further, the study found that the
combined effects of entrepreneurial behaviour, social and economic institutions are greater than
their individual effects, R2=78.9%. The study experienced limitations regarding the wide
geographical scope of the region, security challenges during the data collection stage and
obtaining the cooperation of the owners of the MSEs. However, these constraints were managed.
The study suggest further research on micro, small and medium size enterprises in the livestock
sector in North Eastern Kenya based on individual theories of institutions, culture, geography and
bricolage and not integrated as this study has done. Such research will help shed more light on the
performance of MSEs in the livestock sector using new entrepreneurship research lens. The study
has theoretical, managerial and policy implications in the concerned livestock sector in Kenya. | en_US |
